


Kinky boots, or, first steps in the liberation of Lieutenant Sheba

by lotesse



Category: Battlestar Galactica (1978)
Genre: Crossdressing, Daddy Issues, Embarrassment, F/M, Feminist Themes, Forced Crossdressing, Gender Issues, High Heels, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, even in space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kinky boots, or, first steps in the liberation of Lieutenant Sheba

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gryph](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gryph/gifts).



Kinky boots,  
or, first steps in the liberation of Lieutenant Sheba

 

“Why in the names of the Lords and Consorts do you keep wearing those things?” Athena asked, watching Sheba sigh with pleasure and relief as she pulled off her narrow-toed slender heeled uniform boots. Athena could sympathize; she'd tried on a pair for about a minute, back when she first took her commission, and had readily given them up. She said, “I mean, I wear eyeliner on the bridge every day - where else am I going to get to wear it any more? - but you wouldn't catch me pulling a whole duty shift in those torture devices.”

Sheba looked down at the two pairs of regulation boots: hers, made to fit close to the leg, with slim buckles and three-inch-rise heels, and Athena's, similarly dainty in size, but in all other respects just like the boys'. “I never noticed that you didn't,” she said. “My fa – the Commander – made all the women serving on Pegasus wear the ladies' boots.”

Athena tossed her head. “And there were so many women on Pegasus?”

Sheba shook hers. “It was just me and a tech in Engineering, Sophia,” she said. “And she liked really high heels. She mostly sat at a desk, though.”

“Well, I hope you won't think I'm being over-critical of your father, but I think it's plain bad command policy to determine uniforms based on sex. The boots aren't that bad for heels, I guess, but they're still inferior in design to the men's.”

“I get around just fine.”

“Sure, but you still have to 'get around,' you know? My sister-in-law was wearing regulation ladies' boots when she was gunned down by the Cylons. If she could have run faster, payed less attention to her footing, who knows?”

Interested now, Sheba asked, “Are you talking about Serina?” Nobody ever said much about Apollo's wife, or talked much about her death. She'd tried once to speak to Apollo about his loss and he'd been pale and distant for ages after, more than a week, and even Starbuck had barely been able to get him to warm back up.

Athena nodded, her hair tossing cloudily around. “If boots with heels on them are just as good as boots without, I'd like to see the men wear them.”

Bree, listening in, giggled at that. “So would I!” she said. 

Sheba looked at her, looked at the boots, and let herself smile the beginnings of a wide and unfeminine grin.

“All right,” she said. “I'm convinced; no more ladies' boots for me.”

Athena grinned back at her, picking up Sheba's other, unspoken thought. “And we're going to prank them?”

“I think we must,” Sheba answered after a moment of considered deliberation. “In the interests of equality between the sexes.”

“We'll have to make everything up ourselves, you know. Is it worth it?”

Bree put it, “We can all go in on it, Athena! Many hands make light work. Even our own boys had their fun at our expense in the beginning. It'll serve all of them right to get a taste of their own sauce.”

*

The briefing had been scheduled for six centons ago, but Captain Apollo and the rest of his senior command team had yet to emerge from the men's ready room. Nor were any of the male pilots on time, either. 

Sheba and Bree, locked in one another's arms, were nearly on the ground with nervous giggles. From behind the partition they could hear mutters of dismay and confusion: “can't go out there like,” “what fresh hell of,” “can't make me,” and then, rising above them all, a wail of “if I'd wanted to be a dancer, sir, I'd have gone to a different academy!”

Boomer was pushed out first, to no help for the girls' giggles. His stocky masculine frame tottered atop unaccustomedly slender underpinnings. Athena would later claim it was actually really sexy, in a totally wrong sort of way. Dietra blew air through her nose at him.

“Uh,” he said, cleared his throat, and manfully persevered. “The, uh, Captain would like to know, um, what you've done with our boots.”

“What the _blue hells_ you've done with our boots,” Apollo growled out from behind the partition. “Athena, if you had anything to do with this, I swear I'll - ”

Poor Boomer was still teetering out there all by his lonesome. Athena had resorted to stuffing her sleeve into her mouth to contain her mirth.

Sheba bit her lip in worry. Twinges of guilt were plucking at her. She never would have dared to tease like this if everyone else hadn't made like it would be safe. She wanted it to be safe, very badly, because it was awfully fun. Still, best to keep things from getting out of hand - Apollo might threaten his sister in play, but she didn't think he'd cross that line with anyone else. “It's my fault, Apollo,” Sheba called. “Athena was trying to help me get over something about my father. But we did take all of your boots. You're going to have to come out in the ones you have, or lose the morning's work. Sorry?”

A loud sigh wafted over the partition.

The parade that emerged was well worth the wait. Bojay's usual wide-legged swagger deteriorated dramatically in heels; Jolly, evidently more used to keeping awkward limbs in line, was no more shambling in women's boots than in men's, but his bright red face was a comedy in and of itself.

Apollo, moving tentative and colt-legged on his high heels to his place at the table, was abso-fracking-utely gorgeous. He'd been attractive enough in that black leather get-up for the raid on Gamoray, Sheba had thought, but it turned out that the way to get Strike Commander Captain Apollo looking drop-dead delicious was to put him off-balance and get him feeling shy.

He looked like one of the Cancerian fashion models that had used to move with such balletic and creaturely grace, with their eyes painted to look huge and doe-like - possibly because Apollo's eyes _were_ huge and doe-like, oddly nervous, oddly shining. You could tell that everyone in the room was looking at him; the giggles and ribald joshing had quieted, and the air was gone uncomfortably heavy with charge. Apollo stilled, went pale.

And then Starbuck – because of course, _Starbuck_ – broke the tension, strutting out like a queen in his heels to the rescue, pulling focus to himself like a magnet. “Well, ladies, gents,” he said, holding out his hands to indicate his shifted weight, his popped round butt, “what do you think?”

Rising, Athena met Starbuck's play: “I think we need to look up the dance master from that place on Caprica, what was his name, the one with the roaming hands? And let you learn how to do it all backwards in your high heels like a good prima donna ought.” Cannily, she used the motion of pulling herself up on Apollo's arm to land him safely behind her, sitting down so that he could hide his long well-displayed legs under the table. Athena had always cursed her big brother for his pretty eyes; now she could add pretty legs to the list of his sins. 

Starbuck sashayed over to her, spun her into his arms, dipped her over backward, until both were laughing, ploy becoming genuine as they played together. If Apollo in heeled boots looked like a high fashion model, Starbuck in heels was like a cabaret queen: less raw, more performed. As if there should be plumes of feathers involved in some way. His legs were also pretty, compact, with toned musculature and long strong bones beneath.

Distracted by the noise and motion and folly of his display, the room settled, tensions dissipating. Everyone took their seats, and the day's changes in footwear were (mostly) obviated by the day's business. But Starbuck did keep stealing the most peculiar glances at Apollo out of the corner of his eye.

The three of them remained behind afterward while the room cleared: Apollo curling awkwardly into the chair as if he could fix everything by pretending he just didn't have any feet, Starbuck standing in a hip-shift behind him, flirting and joking and running general interference, and Sheba sitting quiet to watch the ending of the play. Athena, not wanting to come to her brother's negative attention, had taken off with alacrity as soon as she was able. 

Only when the room was nearly empty did Starbuck lean down to help Apollo up. They made an arresting picture, two men leaning close together, both balancing high on ladies' boots. 

Sheba blushed and dropped her eyes to the datapads on the table in front of her.

“Here, Boomer,” Starbuck said, casting about for aid; Boomer, now regularly shod in his own boots, had come back, like the good and trustworthy officer he was, to check for stragglers. “Take the wilting flower here and get him some shoes he can walk in, huh? He's klutzy enough without spines strapped to his feet.”

“I'm not a flower,” Apollo muttered mulishly.

“You got somewhere else to be?” Boomer replied. 

“I got words to have with a lady,” Starbuck said, all swagger and flair as usual. 

Boomer turned Apollo gently toward the door, and Starbuck – for some reason – blushed as he watched them go. When they were out of sight, though, he came swaying back, still in the homemade prank women's boots, to sit beside Sheba. She looked up from the datapads.

“Hey, Sheba,” Starbuck said, ducking his head, his earlier bravado gone ragged, “I haven't said anything about this, because – because, well, it's obvious that you really loved – love – your dad, and I have no idea what that's like. I've never had a dad. But I saw him with you, on the Pegasus, and – no matter how much you love him, no matter how much he loved you, it was a felger move to make you think your looks, or your feminine wiles, or whatever, are what you're most worth."

She started, blushed again. "How did you know it was about my father? Was it that obvious?"

Starbuck smiled. "Naw," he said. "I'm just used to dealing with the anxieties of commanders' kids. But - the Commander never plays up her looks with Athena. Or with Apollo, for that matter, and he could – the man's got a gorgeous set of offspring, no joke, and he knows it, but he doesn't ask them to use themselves in that way.”

“You do,” she said, slitting her eyes at him. She didn't think she was ever going to be able to figure this flyboy out; he was a lot like her father in a lot of ways, but then again nothing like him in others. “You can't tell me you don't use your looks, your sexuality, to get ahead.”

He shrugged, smiling bright and false. “Yeah, well, that's different. _I_ have to. It's all I got. But people like – Apollo, or Athena, or you – people who have someone to – you don't have to. Or you shouldn't. And – well, I'm sorry, that your dad didn't extend the same care to you. Hope that doesn't piss you off.”

She smiled, a small genuine smile this time. “It doesn't, Starbuck. Thank you. And -”

He looked back up. “And?”

“Tell Apollo, for me, that he looks very pretty in drag.”

Starbuck choked. Sheba arched an eyebrow, shook her head, and strode sturdily away in her new dainty calf-high girl-sized combat boots.


End file.
